Rotary-spit cooking apparatus has been provided heretofore and generally consists of a specialized oven or grill equipped with means for rotatably mounting and driving a rotary spit or rotisserie upon which a food item, usually meat, e.g. fowl, can be impaled for infrared cooking while being rotated.
During the cooking operation, which usually takes a relatively long time, fats released from the food article tend to collect on the walls of the housing as a result of the combination of rotation thereof and spattering resulting from infrared heating. In addition, the food article tends to dry out and there is almost invariably the danger of charring of the surface of the food article, such as the skin of the fowl. As a consequence, repeated and frequent basting may be required of the food article in the juices which are formed.
Mention may be made of an improved cooking technique developed by me and described in the French application No. 84.07985 filed May 17, 1984 and the corresponding U.S. application Ser. No. 734,938 filed May 16, 1985 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,192 on Apr. 7, 1987.
That patent described a cooking apparatus utilizing the injection of steam at atmospheric pressure, the apparatus comprising a boiler for producing the steam and which is injected into the cooking apparatus which is brought to a temperature of the order of 100.degree. C. This apparatus is capable of reducing the cooking time by combining the advantages of conventional cooking with that of steam cooking.
However, it has not been possible heretofore to apply this technique to rotary-spit cooking.